Animals are known to go to great lengths for the opportunity to breed. A new study reports that an adult male humpback whale has traversed record-breaking distances on the quest to find new fish in the sea.
The whale, which has its own profile on Happywhale.com, was initially spotted in 2013 in breeding areas off South America near Columbia in the East Pacific Ocean. The intrepid traveller was then photographed again in 2022 off the coast of Africa near Zanzibar in the Southwest Indian Ocean.
This male on a mission had swum more than 13,000km – the longest recorded distance between sightings in different breeding areas for the species.
The finding is so interesting because, while humpback whales undertake one of the longest known seasonal migrations of all mammals, from low-latitude breeding grounds to high-latitude feeding grounds, they rarely migrate longitudinally between breeding grounds.
A map of the world focused on the southern ocean. It shows in pink, green, yellow, and purple the respective breeding and feeding grounds of different breeding stocks of humpback whales and the sighting locations of the male humpback.
The sighting locations of the male humpback whale between the breeding grounds G (2013 and 2017) and C (2022). Squares represent primary feeding grounds of the Southern Hemisphere humpback whale breeding stocks (BS) G, A, B and C. Semicircles represent their respective core breeding grounds. Credit: Kalashnikova et al 2024, R. Soc. Open Sci, https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.241361
“Humpback whales often display strong site fidelity to specific breeding grounds, but with notable exceptions,” the authors of the study write.
“The long-distance movement presented here appears to be atypical and raises the question as to what its drivers are, which could include but not necessarily be limited to mating strategies.”
They suggest that other reasons behind this “unusual new habitat exploration” may be global climate change bringing altered environmental conditions and events, such as shifting food (krill) sources.
The research, published in the Royal Society Open Science, used data from the Happywhale platform. Citizen scientists upload photographs of their whale encounters, the platform identifies individuals from their unique markings and tracks whale movements.
“This study … underlines the importance of transboundary research effort and citizen science to understand potential drivers and population impact of interoceanic movements of humpback whales,” write the authors.
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The Ultramarine project – focussing on research and innovation in our marine environments – is supported by Minderoo Foundation.